Infection Control and Prevention within a Hospital - Essay Example

? Quality Improvement Plan [Type the [Pick the Executive Summary I have to devise and implement a quality improvement plan on a health care facility. The health care facility that I have chosen to implement a quality improvement plan upon is a hospital. The issue that has being chosen for quality improvement is infection control and prevention within a hospital and what measures a hospital’s research department takes in order to find treatments of the infections that spread and how they go about their way to quarantine a hospital whenever an issue of infection control comes up (WHO, 2013).  It is prudent for any successful infection control program to include all kinds of precautionary measures. The first and foremost step includes the measures which are taken in order to prevent known infections throughout the hospital. This job is carried out in a hospital by means of not only awareness programs but there is also a need for utmost cleanliness within a hospital. For this reason, hospitals should aptly adhere to the guidelines that are provided by their supervisory committees, for example, hospitals in America have to follow the guidelines of CDC in order to conduct research on different diseases and also to follow protocols in case a rare infectious disease breaks out (Health.vic.gov.au, 2013; CDC, 2013). The second thing that involves the plan is the monitoring of the infection, in case someone has it and to find proper ways to eliminate threats that promote the spread of such infections. For this reason a hospital has to be advanced and equipped with proper technology in order to prevent the infections from spreading, especially within the health care facility, in this case a hospital. What follows after it are different surveillance regimens where the hospital has to monitor the status of diseases in order to keep them from becoming an epidemic. Another part where hospitals need to focus upon is how they would collect different data about the disease and how to compile it in order to use it for the prevention of new cases from happening. Different tools are to be identified that the hospital needs in order to check the problems that have immediate effect and conduct studies to not only cure the diseases but also make efforts in coming up with a plan to completely eradicate them. It shouldn't always be about finding the cure because there are thousands of diseases with known cure but they still exist alive and kicking. It should be about finding the roots of the diseases; what areas it stems from and its effects, precautions and then devising a plan about nipping these diseases in the bud. This not only provides service to humanity by finding elimination methods for diseases but also improves the quality of service of a hospital where it strives to provide information to WHO about the methods that can prevent and eliminate infectious diseases around the globe. Introduction In order to devise a successful plan for the prevention and control of diseases within a hospital, we have to find out what is the core mission of a hospital and what it sees in itself to provide to the humanity as well as its own development. A hospital’s major mission is to provide health care to people who are sick and to also provide them with cures and treatments depending upon the disease they have while providing quality service for the patients. In order to achieve this mission, a hospital that is big in its stature and reputation, not only tries to cure people through doctors but also through research on different diseases and also providing medical training in the form of med school. A hospital also provides ER services which is one of its main department because you would never know what emergency might pop up. Apart from that, clinical duties are also a part of major services that hospital adheres to because it is its responsibility to treat even everyday sickness and diseases. Goals and Objectives Like any other profit seeking organization, a hospital has different goals and objectives that it needs to reach in order to increase productivity, popularity and also the profit turnover because let’s face it, everybody needs to make money and growth to survive and a health care organization such as a hospital is no exception to the rule. For such things a hospital tends to provide not only the best possible education but also the best possible medical care while adhering to the rules and guidelines that are set up by the authorities that govern hospital. For example, a hospital gives emergency patients special care and there is a whole department where doctors, nurses and other staff attend to in order to provide the best possible care. Hospital has to make sure that at least one neurosurgeon on the premise or else risk getting the emergency room getting shut down. Apart from that a hospital also strives towards making profits and expanding its department and the number of care facilities that it provides to the community. Rehab centers, labs especially made for different tests like MRI, full body scans, X-rays, CT Scan etc. The hospital also acts in its own best interest and the patient’s to make deals with the insurance companies where they are reimbursed along with making sizeable profit due to providing health care to the patients of the health insurances that exist within the country so as to provide medical attention to the patients who have the insurance. Scope of QI Activities Quality improvement plan in implementing infection control not only affects the department where the patients are cured but also every staff member within the health care facility. A medical research team provides its services in trying to find ways on how to improve the quality improvement and what to do in order to implement the plan. From the highest level within a hospital to the lowest level possible, everyone is responsible in carrying out different activities to help the hospital in implementing the plan. The department staff undergoes training where they follow specific guidelines provided by the hospitals. The staff, medical or otherwise, is also trained to the description of their jobs so that they could provide help for the implementation of the plan. Medical school within the hospitals provide proper training according to the guidelines of the hospital which helps the student in exercising the activities that they are assigned to in accordance to the plan of enacting infection control and prevention. Doctors attending to the clinical patients or other critical patients need to recognize the responsibility of how to check for every possibility infection wise in order to commit to the plan. So, almost whole of the hospital is affected by the whole activity of the quality control. Data Collection tools In order to provide effective methods in implementing the infection control program, the hospital also needs to identify the data collection tools which are required by the hospital in order to collect appropriate data pertaining to controlling the diseases and trying to find a way to eliminate them. One data collection tool is a control chart that records the changes in performance over time while implementing the quality improvement plan. Now what this data collection method provides is the comparison of the data collected through new means to the practices in the past in order to determine the growth and consistencies of the current practices to the ones that were followed before in the data collection. Another is the use of different diagrams like histogram or scatter diagrams. What these do is pit one aspect of the research with other and come up with data that stems from them. For example, the data collection on the concentration of certain infection, where it stems from and different treatments that cures it. Surveys can also be effective tools in data collection because it would give direct feedback of the patients that have been infected with the particular infection in their lives and provide accurate data about the patients in how they got treated and how much time it took. Last one is the design of experiments in which planned experiments are carried on different processes to find methods to cure the disease. Methodology and Processes One of the most important methodologies that have to be implemented within hospitals is the correct hygiene regimen for not only the doctors, but the entire hospital. This is due to the fact that most of the infections that are resistant to steroids and other drugs are spread through hand contact. It is very important that every staff in the hospital tries to adhere to the fact that their cooperation in this matter is needed and they have to be conscious about their cleanliness so that there is next to zero percent chance of the diseases to be spread within the hospitals (Health.vic.gov.au, 2013). Another method to control infections within hospitals is to find the appropriate equipment in order to perform surveillance within the hospital premises. There are different benefits of the surveillance programs which not only helps the hospital to monitor patients with different infections and also to monitor how the diseases spread. Monitoring the patient would allow the hospital to learn there from their mistakes so as to not repeat them in the future. Surveillance to monitor how the disease spreads would provide the hospital to come up with different and effective methods in trying to prevent the disease from spreading (SSI, 2012; Health.vic.gov.au, 2013). One of the methodologies that are used in different hospitals is to conduct a clinical trial. In order to improve on the current plan it is eerily important that the best doctors in the hospital conduct these trials in order to come up with ways to cure the people who have the disease. This need stems from the fact that many infections hit the whole world in different regions and different medicinal companies in effort with different hospitals come up with ways to make different anti-infectives. But this actually in turn poses different challenges in how to go about with the experimental treatment and how to get patients on board with the concept. It is a challenge to convince patient with even terminal infectious diseases to carry through with the trials because a doctor has to inform the patient of all the risks that involves in the clinical trial that might result in shortening their lives even further (Parexel, 2013). There is also process of how to quarantine in case of contagious diseases in which patients are kept in isolations while coming up with methods to cure them. This also includes research in eliminating infectious diseases. There are two known diseases that have been eradicated from the world, Small pox in 1979 and Rinderpest in 2011 (CDC, 2013). Comparative Databases, Benchmarks and Standards While conducting research on how to improve infection control and different methods in how to prevent them, a hospital needs to study comparative databases. This involves the states of different other hospitals and how they go about their way in order to prevent the diseases from spreading. Hospitals also need to follow the different guidelines presented by the WHO and whatever the standard is the country that it operates within. National policies of WHO in providing infection safety have to be followed by the hospital. In USA, Center of Disease and Control provides guidelines in how to prevent infection by different hand hygiene programs and other control guidelines (CDC, 2013; WHO, 2013) Authority Structure This determines the role of different people at different level within the hospital in the quality improvement plan. The ones at the top are the board of directors who formulize and approve strategies to be followed in order to provide infection control. They also evaluate the performance and update the strategies as needed (Elliott, 2010). Executive leaders are one step below the board who actually overseas the day to day operation within the hospital and is liaison between the board of director and people implementing the plan. Dean of Medicine is one example where he or she oversees and evaluates performance of plan along with the Quality improvement committee (Warner, 2005). Actually, quality improvement committee is the one that comes up with the improvement plan according to the strategies defined by the board of directors. They are also the ones who evaluate the reports made by the department managers along with the executive leader and forward it to the board of directors. The one they supervise are the department managers who document the data from the quality improvement implementation and make reports and documentations for the QIC (NHA, n.d.). Medical staff and the department staff are the ones that are responsible in implementing the infection control program and they have to follow the guidelines laid out by the QIC and executive leaders (NHA, n.d.). Communication The communication process includes that the data compiled by the managers go to the QIC and QIC then hands down further instruction to the department managers. In turn, the department managers relay the data to the staff working under them while collecting data from them. Executive leader is the one responsible for communication between the plan implemented by the staff and the board of directors. It has to be noted that the most communication and interaction is done by the department managers. Education The department and the medical staff are handed the responsibilities after they are provided proper training about the infection control regimen by their supervisors. The education is basically on annual basis and the different staffs are oriented depending on their responsibilities in controlling and preventing infections. The medical staff is provided with the education of both prevention and controlling the infections while the departmental staff is provided with training in how to prevent the infections (NHA, n.d.). Annual Evaluation This quality improvement plan would go through evaluation on an annual basis where the performance of the plan would be evaluated. Different activities that were performed in the improvement of infection control and prevention would be summarized and the data would be compiled and forwarded to the main authority for further instructions (NHA, n.d.). References CDC (2013). CDC - Guidelines and Recommendations - Infection Control in Dental Settings - Oral Health. [online] Retrieved from: http://www.cdc.gov/oralhealth/infectioncontrol/guidelines/ [Accessed: 4 Oct 2013]. CDC (2013). CDC - Legal Authorities, Quarantine and Isolation - Quarantine and Isolation. [online] Retrieved from: http://www.cdc.gov/quarantine/aboutlawsregulationsquarantineisolation.html [Accessed: 4 Oct 2013]. Elliott, G (2010). The Role of Middle Managers in Strategy | Performance and Strategy. [online] Retrieved from: http://www.performanceandstrategy.com/articles-of-interest/middle-managers [Accessed: 27 Sep 2013]. Health.vic.gov.au (2013). Public hospital infection control program: Infection prevention in health services - Victorian Government Health Information, Australia. [online] Retrieved from: http://www.health.vic.gov.au/infectionprevention/publichospital.htm [Accessed: 04 Oct 2013]. NHA (n.d.). Untitled. [online] Retrieved from: http://www.nhanet.org/pdf/quality/model.qi.pdf [Accessed: 27 Sep 2013]. Parexel (2013). Clinical Trials - Infectious Disease | PAREXEL. [online] Retrieved from: http://www.parexel.com/clinical-research-services/clinical-research/therapeutic-expertise/infectious-disease/ [Accessed: 4 Oct 2013]. SSI. (2012). Preparedness and infection control - Statens Serum Institut. [online] Retrieved from: http://www.ssi.dk/English/HealthdataandICT/Surveillance%20in%20Denmark/Preperedness%20and%20infection%20control.aspx [Accessed: 04 Oct 2013]. Warner, E (2005). An organization’s board of directors. [online] Retrieved from: http://www.idea.org/blog/2005/12/02/an-organization%E2%80%99s-board-of-directors/ [Accessed: 27 Sep 2013]. WHO (2013). WHO | Infection control. [online] Retrieved from: http://www.who.int/topics/infection_control/en/ [Accessed: 4 Oct 2013]. Read More